The next thing on my weekly grocery shopping list was dish washing detergent, which found me staring at a wall of products. In that moment I was astonished at how many choices I had to chose from simply to clean my dishes. There are three forms of detergent, single use tabs, liquid/gel and powder and all three come on a variety of brand names. My reflex was to grab the package of single use dish washing tabs I always get, when the question popped into my mind wondering which choice was actually the least expensive.
I wasn’t as interested in determining which brand was the least expensive, that was easy enough to calculate just by looking at the packaging. My question revolved around what form, tabs, liquid/gel or powder, is the least expensive. It would take forever to compare every brand across the three forms, so I chose the popular brand Cascade, and the Walmart Great Value brand for my comparison.
Single Use Tablets
I found single use tablets in many size packages even with just two brands. I chose a large value sized package for each brand.
- Great Value Dish Washing Tabs: 110 Tabs for $12.47 or 11.3 cents per tablet
- Cascade Complete Action Pacs: 63 Tabs for $13.97 or 22.2 cents per tablet
Liquid/Gel
For the liquid/gel form of dish washing detergent, I was able to find equal sized containers of 75oz. Doing a little research, I found that a typical recommendation for the amount of liquid/gel to use was 6 tsp, or about 1oz (30ml). Therefore, a 75oz container of liquid/gell dish washing detergent would wash 75 loads of dishes
- Great Value Dish Washing Liquid/Gel: 75oz for $2.98 or about 4 cents per load
- Cascade Complete Dish Washing Liquid/Gel: 75oz for $8.73 or about 11.6 cents per load
Powder
For the powder form of dish washing detergent, I was also able to find equal sized containers of 75oz. Again, about 1oz of detergent would be used per load, yielding 75 loads per container.
- Great Value Dish Washing Powder: 75oz for $2.98 or about 4 cents per load
- Cascade Complete Dish Washing Powder: 75oz for $5.97, or about 8 cents per load
Conclusion
The Liquid/Gel and Powder form are very similar in price within a single brand but single use tablets are much more expensive. This is another case of consumers paying for convenience, as it’s very convenient to grab a dish washing tablet and drop it in the dishwasher. If you want to wash your dishes as inexpensively as possible, one of the forms is your best bet.
What do you think, EOD Nation, what form of dish washing detergent to you use?
